Daniel Aaron (Americanist)
Daniel Aaron (born August 4, 1912 in Chicago , Illinois , † April 30, 2016 ) was an American historian and Americanist.
He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1933 , worked outside the university, and was the first to earn a PhD from Harvard University in American Civilization in 1943 . His mentor at Harvard was Perry Miller . Aaron taught at Smith College from 1939 to 1971 . From 1971 until his retirement in 1983 he taught as Victor S. Thomas Professor of English and American Literature at Harvard. In 1973 he was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1997 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .
Aaron's book Writers on the Left , his best-known work, introduces the communist elite writers in the United States of the first half of the 20th century, authors such as Max Eastman , Granville Hicks , Floyd Dell, John Reed , Mike Gold, Howard Fast , Joseph Freeman (editors of the New Masses ) and sympathizers such as Edmund Wilson , Malcolm Cowley , Theodore Dreiser or Langston Hughes .
In 1985, Aaron published The Inman Diaries , a two-volume selection from Arthur Crew Inman's original 155-volume diary .
Publications (selection)
- Men of Good Hope: A Story of American Progressives. Oxford University Press, New York 1951.
- Writers on the Left: Episodes in American Literary Communism. Harcourt, Brace & World, New York 1961.
- The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1972.
- Cincinnati, Queen City of the West, 1819-1838. Ohio State University Press, Columbus 1992.
- The Americanist . University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 2007. (autobiography)
Web links
Excerpts from works by Daniel Aaron:
- Excerpt from Writers on the Left on John Dos Passos
- Excerpt from Men of Good Hope ( December 14, 2010 memento on the Internet Archive ) on Henry George
- List of articles by Daniel Aaron in the New York Review of Books
- Obituary in the Harvard Gazette
Individual evidence
- ^ Benjamin Ivry: Library of America Founder Daniel Aaron Dies at 103 . The Jewish Daily Forward , May 1, 2016.
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Aaron, Daniel |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American historian and Americanist |
DATE OF BIRTH | 4th August 1912 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago , Illinois |
DATE OF DEATH | April 30, 2016 |